The breakout season finally has arrived. Tyler Russell officially has become the quarterback all those coaches who spent all those hours recruiting him thought he could be.

By doing it against a bunch of nobodies.

Now look who’s next: the biggest somebody of them all.

“They’re the next team on our schedule,” Russell says.

Keep telling yourself that, kid. Of all the games and all the circumstances Russell and his Mississippi State teammates could walk into, none will be more telling than Saturday’s game at No. 1 Alabama.

Tide coach Nick Saban, whose team leads the nation in every important defensive statistical measure, says Mississippi State will be the most complete team Alabama has played. He says the Bulldogs—and more specifically, Russell—are throwing the ball better than they have in years and will pose a significant threat.

But instead of taking the easy way out; instead of leaving his home state of Mississippi and looking to Alabama where winning championships has become expected; Russell stayed for the unknown through the unthinkable. He originally verbally committed to Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom in April of 2008, and by the time he was leading Meridian High School to its first state championship in four decades later that December, Croom had been fired.

Saban—and every other major program—moved back in on Russell’s recruitment, but so did new Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen. And Mullen had this trump card: He had just coached on a national championship team at Florida and had just coached a Heisman trophy-wining quarterback.

Tim Tebow was a big, strong, dual-threat quarterback, and Russell was a big strong, dual-threat quarterback. See the connection?

“We sold who we are and what our future was here,” Mullen says. “Tyler wanted to be part of it.”

It’s just that everyone, Russell more than everyone, thought he’d be part of it from Day 1. You don’t get all of those recruiting stars for nothing. You don’t get Steve Spurrier in your living room telling you he has been looking for a quarterback like you to save his offense at South Carolina if you’re not a player who makes an impact from the moment you arrive on campus.

Yet here we are, four years later, and Russell—finally—has become that elite quarterback: 15 TDS, only 1 INT, and less than 1,000 yards from setting the school record for passing yards in a season with at least six games to play. When Russell turned down Saban and Spurrier and all the others who came after him once Croom was fired, Alabama stayed with AJ McCarron, who committed to the Tide a month after Russell originally committed to Mississippi State.

Four years later, McCarron is on his way to becoming one of the greatest quarterbacks in Alabama history. Russell, meanwhile, is only now breaking out after sitting behind Chris Relf for much of the last two years.

That’s what was so perplexing for those on the outside of the Mississippi State program. Relf, although a fiery competitor, was little more than an athlete (who looked like a linebacker) playing quarterback. He wasn’t a threat to throw the ball, and Mullen’s offense struggled without that needed balance.

Russell eventually won the job midway through last season, then got hurt, then lost the job again and at last came into this season as the clear leader for the job. He’s throwing the ball with accuracy (60.1 percent of passes completed) and velocity, and has opened up Mullen’s offense.

The Bulldogs are 27th in the nation in scoring offense and averaging 37 points per game—up 12 points from last year. Yet there’s one nagging problem: Russell’s numbers and the offensive improvement have happened against a schedule that includes South Alabama, Jackson State, Troy and Middle Tennessee—not to mention three SEC teams that have tanked the season (Auburn, Tennessee, Kentucky).

Hence, the nobodies. And Somebody is coming down the track, full speed ahead.

“They’re the next team on our schedule,” Russell says again and again. “They just happen to be No. 1.”